This is the ultimate in large caliber rifles, it has a 2 Gauge or 2 Bore caliber.  These very large bore rifles are all custom made, from the principle that they would not be too popular with anyone but the specialist shooter.

Firearms manufacturers would never conceive of putting such guns into production due to their high level of custom uniqueness and exclusivity.  Therefore all of these super big bore rifles are one off's, built by their owners or built specifically for a shooter to their exacting specifications.

Gunsmiths will generally construct any weapon a shooter requires (within the legal limits and local laws) as this type of custom gun is usually only within reach of the limits of the owners wallet!  A webpage I have on an exclusive pistol that fires the Nitro Express .600 bullet for example can be made for around $17,000  So a custom rifle such as this 2 Bore would have a considerable dollar value.

There are also muzzle loading varieties of the 2 Bore but if you want to get down to business then the cartridge version is the one to have.  Cartridges can be hand loaded to the shooters required and regulated safe amount and are easier and cleaner to shoot, especially on a cold wet and windy day.

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Below a guy by the name of Alan Myers fires off a 2 Bore rifle at night, there is an impressive fireworks display  with every shot! Some serious barrel cleaning would be needed after firing a 2 Bore gun as well.

Below the 2 Bore muzzle loader variety.  It is a percussion rifle in that percussion caps placed on a side nipple and hammer assembly are used to ignite the powder.  Another way to tell that its a muzzle loader is the visible  ram-rod that is positioned under the barrel, there is close up of this further down the page.  The ram-rod was used to push (ram) the shot and any wadding down the barrel, a time consuming process.

Incidentally, this rifle weighs thirty-two lb's with a barrel that is three feet long.  It was built by master gunsmith, Mr. Steve Zihn in Wyoming, USA for a customer who intends to go on a big game hunting expedition in Africa...I wonder what's wrong with a good and trusty .375 H&H rifle?

Cold fingers and wet weather are always a hindrance when firing black powder weapons that have delicate percussion caps and "open" powders that need to be kept dry.  The advent of cartridges put all that trouble aside, as the bullet, powder and percussion cap/primer became a sealed all-in-one weather proof unit.

Below: On the left is a relatively giant .700 Nitro Express cartridge with its massive 1000 grain bullet, this is next to the awesome 2 Bore with its 3500 grain solid bronze bullet.  Yes folks, that's a 3500grn bullet!  And if the velocity could be as high as normal rifles, then a 2 Bore could be considered as an anti-tank piece.

Below are some cartridge cases from several normal  guns compared to the 2 Bore. First on the left is the large .50 Smith & Wesson Magnum, next to that is the  Winchester .45-70 followed by the .700 Nitro Express, and finally the super massive 2 Bore.

You could probably put all the other cases into the 2 Bore case alone.  Make no mistake the 2 Bore is a very large caliber, don't forget it is only 50% short of being a 1 Bore or having a one lb  bullet weight.  The bore of a gun is devised by how many bullets can be made out of a pound weight of lead, in this case only two bullets can be made hence 2 Bore @ 3500grn  from a possible 7000grn in one lb.

Below is a standard 9mm parabellum pistol bullet standing next to a 2 Bore cartridge case, this should help to give some scale to the size of this massive rifle caliber.

The German company of Schroeder & Hetzendorf  actually make cartridges for this 2 Bore rifle and they are called the S&H 2-Bore Black-Powder Express cartridges.  The cartridge is filled with the much more slower burning, less volatile black powder, as opposed to the more modern faster burning  nitro genus powders. 

The reason for this is that if modern powders were used then the gun would be too dangerous to fire by an individual as the recoil would be 100% more potent and almost guaranteed to smash the shoulder of the firer, regardless of whatever protection was being used.

Also the barrel thickness would have to be greatly quantified to withstand the enormous pressure involved...measured in tons per square inch in this instance. As it is, black powder does not produce the same high pressures and the barrel walls do not have to be over thick as seen in the image below.  Incidentally, the round silver thing is the ramrod, as its a muzzle loading rifle this is needed to ram down the shot.

The muzzle of a 2 Bore gun is still something to behold, it looks as though it should belong affixed to the side of a battleship!

The size of the ball shot/bullet as seen below that this rifle fires is 1.326 inch or 33.68mm in diameter.  It would inflict damage to a target if you were just to throw it! Generally this shot is custom forged by a gunsmith or the rifles owner, as they are not readily available over the counter of your local gun dealer.

Below the imposing 2 Bore ball shot, compared with a dollar coin, thats a lot of metal there!

Photo credits: Colin of Stolzer & Son's Gunsmithing, Kansas, USA

The elongated bullet for the cartridge variety of the 2 Bore is made of bronze and weighs 3500 grain which is ½lb  or 226.80 grams! Even though these bullets are fired from a rifle, the true designation would be more fitting to the similarity of a shotgun rifled slug.